The wind whipped her loose hair into her face, nearly obscuring her view of the ocean before her. It tugged at her skirts, trying to pull her back from the edge of the cliff that she was slowly approaching. She stopped only when her toes could curl and grasp the lip of the precipice. And there she stood, in nothing more than a shift, watching the distant horizon with a gaze so blue that the sea and sky might have been called mere imitations of that fine color.
She stood, unheeding of the salt water that dripped down her pale cheeks and unaware that the rocky soil beneath her feet cut and stabbed at her tender soles. No one had followed her here; no one had cared, not even Daechir. There were none to stop her; not even her children, now laid away in their cold tombs, could keep her from this leap.
She did not see the small fishing boat with a figure in it approaching.
Yet, something held her back. She stood, contemplating, trying to find some reason that she should not rid the world of her miserable presence. The wind shifted suddenly, now blowing at her back and as if that had decided the whole thing... she leapt.
The figure in the boat, who had sat watching in horror, now gave a shout and began to row, hoping that it would not be too late.
For a moment, she hung suspended gracefully in the air, her black hair flying behind her. Gravity took her then and dragged her down, down, down until she split the water and a spray of foam went up about her, hiding her descent into the cold darkness. The boat and its passenger arrived not long after she had been swallowed up. A trail of bubbles could be seen roiling to the surface, indicating the path that her body had taken.
Without a thought, he dived in after her, praying still that it might not be too late.
When she awoke, she was on land, coughing into the sandy shore below her. She spat up water and took in deep draughts of the clean sea air again and again. At last, she rolled onto her back and stared at the sky, despairing that even in this she had failed. Even as she began to cry, a face appeared above her.
The eyes were gray, like the time just before dawn -- the quietest part of the night. Kindly, that face stared down into her own and brushed away her tears with fingers that were rough with work, but gentle. "Quiet your tears," he told her softly. "I am here, and you are safe."
Her savior lifted her into his arms and held her against himself whereupon she watered his skin with tears until sleep took her.
